Search Results: bioethics

'We act as if we are historically as well as geographically isolated, with no responsibilities for those who seek our assistance.' For 20 years Deborah Zion has researched ethical issues concerning vulnerable populations. Her interest began with her own family, Jews from Poland who sought refuge in Australia before World War II.

Duplicity in politics is not new. Every utterance is tainted by the subtext of scoring points. If it is painful for us to listen, how much worse must it be for the politicians? It is dispiriting to constantly undermine one's own integrity, and the 'dodgy salesman' is no one's ideal of human flourishing.

Labor must have anticipated the negative response to its axing of the solar hot water rebate scheme, yet it went ahead. Does this suggest determination, arrogance or desperation? One thing's for sure, the decision contributed to the impression this government has lost its way.

Embracing an individualistic Australia that transcends ethnic heritage would leave us with a culture that is young, thin and commercialised. If we wish to promote unity and equality, the best thing we can do is learn our own forgotten stories of ethnic heritage.

It is a weakness of human nature that we forgive in our friends what we despise in our enemies. If Germany or Japan had achieved a nuclear weapon and launched it on an Allied city, our condemnation would be unrelenting.

Research suggests that 85 per cent of Australians support legal access to abortion for 'severe disabilities', and 60 per cent for 'mild disabilities'. While we encourage tolerance and diversity in our multi-ethnic society, our medical culture is moving in the opposite direction.

The disasters in Japan early this year left scenes of destruction reminiscent of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Australian experiences of Japanese wartime cruelty have never been forgotten or forgiven. But the problems are not all on the Japanese side.

In seeking to fill a mother's empty womb, Nobel Prize winning biologist Robert Edwards developed a solution. In so doing he confirmed what all innovators know: that progress doesn't occur in a neat and orderly vacuum, and nor should it be halted for fear of what it might produce.

The debate about euthanasia arises only in certain societies that see the world as
belonging to those who are independent, strong and productive. In a society in which the sick, dying,
disabled and elderly are undervalued, the 'right' to die will all too
quickly become a 'duty' to die.

I believed it was not right to manufacture human embryos for research,
but I decided to use scientific arguments against this. In fact that
made the task easier. It was truly astonishing to see how regularly very
bad science was presented publicly by scientists who wanted to do such
work.

The media has reported that
Australia's ban on couples using IVF to choose the sex of their
children might soon be
lifted. Some of the supporters of sex selection
for non-medical reasons are fertility doctors for whom there is a considerable financial incentive.